Quotes about time
33 passages from classic authors that speak of time, for example by Leo Tolstoy, Omar Khayyam and Jean de La Bruyère.
We kept the passages whose text touches on the theme, starting with those where it comes up most. Each is given word for word, with its author, its work and the reference of the passage. To browse an author’s quotes, follow the name.
-
“Remember then: there is only one time that is important, Now! It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power.”
-
“Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears / TO-DAY of past Regrets and future Fears: / To-morrow--Why, To-morrow I may be / Myself with Yesterday’s Sev’n thousand Years.”
-
“Children are neither for the past nor the future, but enjoy the present, which we rarely do.”
-
“The present is never our end; the past and the present are our means, the future alone is our end. Thus we never live, but hope to live.”
-
“How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, / Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself, / In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, / Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.”
-
“Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.”
-
“Meanwhile the Tortoise kept plodding on, and in time reached the goal.”
-
“It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”
-
“Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?”
-
“Youth is the smile of the future in the presence of an unknown quantity, which is itself.”
-
“The old is crumbling down--the times are changing And from the ruins blooms a fairer life.”
-
“Sit not down soured at the revolutions of the times, for patience is bitter, yet it will yield sweet fruit.”
-
“Then divers arts arose; toil conquered all, remorseless toil, and poverty’s shrewd push in times of hardship.”
-
“But believe me, my dear boy, there is nothing stronger than those two: patience and time, they will do it all.”
-
“But, dost thou love life? then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of, as Poor Richard says.”
-
“As it is not one swallow or one fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one day or a short time that makes a man blessed and happy.”
-
“There sat the two grown-up persons; grown-up, and yet children; children at least in heart; and it was summer-time; summer, glorious summer!”
-
“When I was sent of errands, I always took my book with me, and by going one part of my errand quickly, I found time to get a lesson before my return.”
-
“The hand of liberality is stronger than the arm of power.--Hatim Tayi remains not, yet will his exalted name live renowned for generosity to all eternity.”
-
“That which we are, we are; / One equal temper of heroic hearts, / Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will / To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
-
“Let not future things disturb thee, for thou wilt come to them, if it shall be necessary, having with thee the same reason which now thou usest for present things.”
-
“"Patience and time are my warriors, my champions," thought Kutúzov. He knew that an apple should not be plucked while it is green. It will fall of itself when ripe”
-
“The true men of progress are those who profess as their starting-point a profound respect for the past. All that we do, all that we are, is the outcome of ages of labour.”
-
“Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring / Your Winter garment of Repentance fling: / The Bird of Time has but a little way / To flutter--and the Bird is on the Wing.”
-
“You must know that there is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome and good for life in the future than some good memory, especially a memory of childhood, of home.”
-
“Happy, happy, never-returning time of childhood! How can we help loving and dwelling upon its recollections? They cheer and elevate the soul, and become to one a source of higher joys.”
-
“The day has passed delightfully. Delight itself, however, is a weak term to express the feelings of a naturalist who, for the first time, has wandered by himself in a Brazilian forest.”
-
“This method, from the time I had begun to apply it, had been to me the source of satisfaction so intense as to lead me to believe that more perfect or more innocent could not be enjoyed in this life.”
-
“It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy; it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others.”
-
“If I am a princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside. It would be easy to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth of gold, but it is a great deal more of a triumph to be one all the time when no one knows it.”
-
“It is different with the tree, which keeps awake through three seasons of the year, and does not get its sleep till winter comes. Winter is its time for rest, its night after the long day which is called spring, summer, and autumn.”
-
“Frost and sun, the day is wondrous! / Thou still art slumbering, charming friend. / 'Tis time, O Beauty, to awaken: / Ope thine eyes, now in sweetness closed, / To meet the Northern Dawn of Morning / Thyself a north-star do thou appear!”
-
“Oh! she is good, the little rain! and well she knows our need / Who cometh in the time of spring to aid the sun-drawn seed; / She wanders with a friendly wind through silent nights unseen, / The furrows feel her happy tears, and lo! the land is green.”